Why Bacon Grease Could Be The Secret Ingredient For Perfect Fried Chicken

One of the best tips for cooking bacon that we learned from Southern cooks is to always strain and preserve the bacon grease after making breakfast. Not only does this protect your pipes – never, ever pour bacon grease down the sink — but you can recycle this delicious-smelling fat and use it in cooking. A clean glass jar is the ideal vessel for your bacon grease, and fried chicken is the ideal second life for it. One of the mistakes people make when cooking fried chicken is not utilizing the frying medium to infuse extra flavor into their poultry. Bacon grease retains the smoky savor of the meat that it leached from, and will give your fried chicken an inimitable flair that would fit right in at any down-home soiree.

There's a sizable movement towards using animal fats in cooking right now, with some folks eschewing seed oils in favor of alternatives like beef tallow, which is still used in some fast food fries. These same home cooks would undoubtedly be on board with using more bacon grease in their food. Don't think, however, that it's realistic to submerge chicken in bacon fat and cook it the way that you would generally fry chicken. First of all, it takes a lot of bacon grease to fry chicken, and frying bacon simply doesn't produce enough at one time. There are better ways to integrate bacon fat in your fried chicken for delicious results.

There are more reasons than simple scarcity why you might want to avoid frying your chicken outright in bacon grease, but still enjoy the taste benefits. Bacon grease smokes easily, at only about 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep in mind that, for crispy fried chicken, you will need your oil to reach a temperature of 350 degrees. Any less, and you risk the breading of your chicken ending up limp and soggy. This means that bacon grease is not optimal for frying chicken by itself.

On the other hand, marinating your chicken in brushed-on bacon grease overnight before frying in neutral oil can give you that irresistible smoke and salt flavor without burning the oil. You can also add a soupcon of bacon grease to your regular frying oil to impart depth to your chicken and deepen its delectably golden color. The taste won't be overwhelmingly bacon-y, but you will notice the extra dimension to your crispy breading. Keep in mind that the quality of the bacon you use does matter — nicer product will produce higher-quality oil. 

Southern cooks have known for generations that bacon grease was the secret to unmatched meaty, savory flavor, whether you use it in baked beans, leafy veg like collard or mustard greens, or even cornbread. Turns out that fried chicken is yet another way to make this underrated castoff ingredient sing!